Monday, January 2, 2012

We spent the New Year's weekend 250 miles away from our home, in Savannah and on Tybee Island. My favorite statue in Savannah might be one of the newest -- the stiff looking, stainless steel Police Officers Monument, which dates only to 1982. The model for the 5-foot, 8-inch statue was patrolman R.I. Ketterman. The idea for the statue was hatched in 1963 when the president of the Police Officer's Wives Association promised the widow of a recently slain officer that Savannah police killed in the line of action will be publicly remembered. A storefront church window in the historic district, decorated by a self-taught painter, diverted my attention from the beautiful architecture. On Sunday, hundreds of people gathered on the beach for the annual Polar Plunge, which wasn't very polar, with temperatures in the 60s. Guinness World Records was on hand to determine whether the number of people wearing bathing caps was a world record. The result will be announced later in the year. Others at the beach went above and beyond in their attire and simply basked in the attention of shutterbugs like me.